Last Kiss
by moonlessmondays
Summary: All roads they lead her here. She never thought they'd have their last kiss. OQ post 4x11 #OQProject with Simplymaterial and Reginashappiness! Check out the video and the gifset, links inside. OQ forever.


**Hello! A couple of months ago, me, Geli (Reginashappiness) and Susanne (SimplyMaterial) collaborated on a special project for us OQ-ers. And now, it's finally come together! Here it is. So, there is a gifset and a video for this, and I'll leave the link for you to check it out. Trust me, they're perfect!**

 _ **Video:**_ ** _watch?v=Y9RIDn7JXeQ_**

 _ **Gifset:**_ ** _post/139851332012/i-still-remember-the-look-on-your-face-lit_**

 _ **Without further ado, I present you** Last Kiss! _**Enjoy!**

* * *

 ** _Last Kiss_**

* * *

 ** _"_** _I still remember the look on your face…The words you that whispered, for just us to know, you told me you loved me so why did you go away?"_

All roads lead her here.

The wind sweeps around them bitterly, harshly cold, as they stand on the line that separates this quaint little town from the rest of the world. Her cobalt coat does nothing to repel the biting chill in the air, and it seems to seep through her layers of clothing, down to her bones, to her very core, her very soul, and it feels like she's burning, feels like she's too cold, feels like she's unsure of her own emotions, because she _is,_ because there is no logical way to explain the wide array of feelings that go through her as the events unfold. It's as if her heart is being cleaved right out of her chest, she watches it shatter into million tiny pieces and she is powerless to stop it from breaking, powerless to put it back together. She feels as though her soul is being ripped apart in so many different directions, in various ways, until there is not enough left in her.

She can barely lift her eyes to look at him, barely can let herself pause her words for a moment and let him speak. She knows he's saying goodbye, and really, she doesn't want to hear it. But Marian is starting to fall over her own self, and it's time, the inevitable has come and there is no way to avoid it, to pause this moment.

It's funny how he was just saying he's choosing her, choosing to love her barely half an hour ago.

" _To live truthfully, to follow my heart,"_ he'd said as they sat on the bench, the piece of paper that had given her a ray of hope when she had none held between them, " _To you."_ There had been a smile on his face, his eyes full of the love he has for her, and it had been hard not to smile back, not to let her heart fill with hope, to think that all the roads, that his path would lead him to her, to a life together.

It seems however that all roads lead them, to the town line, to painful goodbyes and shared heartaches.

"You should go," Regina says with a sense of urgency.

"Thank you," Marian whispers as she shivers against the magical coldness that is seeping through her, and for the nth time, Regina has to remind herself that this is for the best, that Roland needs his mother and there is no other way but to say goodbye to them, to spare Marian's life. She'd ripped her away from Robin once, she isn't going to do it another time.

Regina nods at the maiden, her heart heavy, and her lips forcing a smile that her heart does not feel like giving. The tears are brimming in her eyes, the brown depths pooling and her vision blurring, and she averts them, tries not to let the pain and the hurt show. She can't let them see the pain. She watches as Marian and Roland cross the town line, the curse losing its effect once they've walked across the barrier. Mother and son look at each other, smiles on their faces, and Regina thinks that she can't possibly deny them this, doesn't want to, even when it is her heart on the line.

She focuses her sight on a point on the ground, unable to meet his eyes, because she can't possibly look at him now, can't possibly watch him cross the line himself, can't possibly say goodbye. Her heart beats, merely, in her chest as the moment looms over them, this is goodbye, she knows that it is, and so why is he not moving?

"Your family is waiting, go," she urges him, points out what they already both know. Her heart clenches in her chest at the thought that _they_ could have been a family, that she could have been a part of his family and he of hers, but clearly time and fate are not on their side.

Clearly, villains really don't get their happy endings, not even reformed ones.

There is a beat that passes, a moment where the air is particularly drafty as it caresses her cheek, and she thinks that this is it, this is the last time she'll ever see him, this is her last moment with him—with his back turned to her—as he makes a step towards the timeline. A beat, and a sigh, and then he's turning towards her, his hands cupping her cheek and his lips pressing against hers in an intimate kiss. His lips mold against hers, soft, warm, sweet, and if this is their last—if this is meant to be their last, then she's going to engrave it in her memory forever, carve it in her heart, and take it out when the pain becomes unbearable, when the days get longer because she can't bear any more to be without him, to not have his presence surround her, and she is left with nothing but these memories to remind her of the love they shared.

Her eyes fall shut as he kisses her once more before he drops his forehead against hers, the pain clearly etched across his features.

"I-," he begins to say, whispering, his voice husky and low as he holds on to her and she to him, clinging to what is left of this moment, to what is left of them.

"I know," she whispers back because she _does_ know, feels it too, with her whole soul, with her whole being, feels it so much that she aches. They are three little words, put them apart and they mean nothing, put them in the right order and they can be powerful enough to destroy. And she can't let him say it, not yet, not now when goodbye seems to be just right behind them (quite literally too). She's too cowardly to let him say it, to let herself hear the words that her heart longs to hear, that she herself longs to say. She is too scared of the pain that would come if the words actually fall from his lips, she is entirely too certain that she cannot bear that kind of pain, doesn't want her heart to have the burden of tasting the sweetness of the honeyed words only to have it be bitterly taken away when he goes away.

She can't have him tell her that he loves her when he's not about to stay, when he _cannot_ stay.

He runs the tip of his nose through the bridge of hers, both of them memorizing each other's scent and feel, and she feels his pain in the way his hands seem to tighten around her face as if he doesn't even want to let go, and she holds his hands in hers, wanting just the same, knowing it can't be

It shouldn't be.

He holds on to her, and she to him, as he takes a step back, the magical barrier rippling visibly as half of him crosses the town line, the whole of him seemingly screaming to stay. He holds her hand, the last of the physical connection that they have as their souls seem to tether to each other, their hands holding on to the seams, and they stand together in the middle of the ruins of their love and the happy ending they will never have.

The tears come now as the last of him disappears through the barrier that separates their worlds. Her heart drops to her stomach (and she wonders how there is something, anything, left of her heart to drop, to break, to shatter, but there is more, she supposes as she literally feels it smash into smithereens deep within her), and she lets her hand hang in the empty space where he used to be but she is met by coldness, by utter icy coldness that seems to envelope her whole body and her whole being. She watches him, right at the other side, his hand suspended in the air as if by leaving it reaching for her, he can still touch her, can still come back to her. She watches his face contort into pain, watches the solitary tear that finds its way down his cheeks falling right to the ground, at his feet where her broken heart lay, shattered and without enough pieces to glue it back together.

She swears, as she watches him walk away, that she will never ever forget this moment, never ever forget his face, never ever forget the pain. And as she rips the page that once brought her light into many pieces, she thinks that hope never really does work out for her.

 **…**

 _"_ _The beat of your heart, it jumps through your shirt, I can still feel your arms"_

She abhors whisky.

Actually, no, she doesn't, she only hates the memories that come along with it, hates how they are reduced into memories now and not her reality. She hates how it reminds her of the man with the lion tattoo who seems to manage to reduce her into a simpering teenage girl with her first crush, the same man who knows how to make her smile when she doesn't even have a reason to, the man who gave her another chance at being able to love and feeling loved, and showing her, making her believe for a moment that yes, everyone does deserve a second chance.

She hates that it reminds her of the man who had made her feel things she didn't, _doesn't_ , have the right to feel, the man who filled her heart to the brim with hope and dreams of a future together with his soft kisses and gentle caresses.

She hates that it reminds her of the man, who without words and without question, without doubt over her, had accompanied her when she had been summoned over at _Granny's_ in a meeting with the _Charming_ clan back when they had been looking for ways to defeat her sister, and he'd walked her to the door of the room Emma had been staying in, her back against the wall as he gave her one sweet kiss after another.

She had felt like floating that day, felt giddy and young and all of the other feelings she's locked up in her heart when Daniel had died.

" _Hopefully, the same thing you see in me_ ," he'd told her when she's asked him what he sees in her (she's still unable to understand what he saw in her, what made him fall in love with her, decades and decades of sin and blood in her hands leave no room for falling in love and happy endings), " _A second chance_."

She'd smiled at him, her eyes softening, half of her unable to believe him, believe this, half of her wanting to just reach out and grab this feeling, hope for it to last. She'd done what her heart had urged her to do and kissed him.

She'd felt the steady thumping of his heart underneath his shirt that day, felt her emotions swirl all over her body even without a heart. She remembers how she'd almost melted when he told her to use his heart for the both them in the absence of her own.

She thinks she fell for him that day, fell so deeply in love with him, or maybe she fell even before that…maybe when she'd asked him to take care of her heart for her, to keep it, entrusting it to him, no matter how valuable he thinks it is and that a thief shouldn't be trusted with it, (but it is given not stolen, she'd said). Or maybe it had been that time when he'd said that she is bold and audacious and not all evil…but it doesn't truly matter when…not anymore, what matters is that she feels it. She feels the love she has for him, all consuming, breathtaking, soul-wrenching, she feels it so keenly, cherishes it, even if it's painful.

Her mind returns to the town line most days, her feet following suit and sometimes she wishes she told him, told him that she loves him even when it hurts to love him so, even if it hurts to love him this way—she loves him still, loves him always.

 **…**

 _"_ _So now I go sit on the floor wearing your clothes, all I know is I don't know how to be anything you miss"_

The smell of fresh pine and warm earth now wafts into the air as the days pass and the leaves change colors, life goes on as usual. It has been weeks since the last time she'd seen him, since that day on the town line, but still her heart aches, breaks inside her, and she tries to move on, tries very hard for her son, but it's difficult when everything reminds her of _him_.

She's taken to avoiding the forest nowadays because it reminds her so much of him. It's of no use, not when his scent lingers on her nose, in her skin, and there are days that she feels he might come back, that he might be there, only to be left disappointed when he isn't. She thinks that maybe pixie dust lies after all.

Maybe she is meant to love him, but never meant to have him.

" _I just never thought I'd have this_ ," she remembers telling him when they'd celebrated the return of her heart with a picnic by the hearth, sharing a bottle of wine whilst seated on the floor of her office.

He'd shared to her the hurt he'd felt when he lost his wife, and she shared her experience of grief when Daniel had died. That day she's confessed the truth about the tattoo, about finding him in a tavern where Tinkerbelle and her pixie dust had led her one night, about how they are soul mates and how the tattoo is a symbol of greater forces marking him as hers and her as his.

She remembers all too vividly the look of surprise that crossed his face when she'd told him of her tale, his sly grin and pleased eyes.

" _Maybe things work out when they are supposed to_ ," he'd told her then after he'd bitten his lip, and it had sent tingles of excitement through her veins, her body pulsating in anticipation, in little thrills of pleasure at the idea that it might work, finally.

She'd wanted to believe his words so badly, wanted to believe that there is a second chance for unfulfilled prophesized loves, for reformed Evil Queens and honorable thieves. But that was then, and this is now. And now is him away from her, living far away from Storybrooke with his _wife_ and child. Now is him trying to live a life, probably not missing her as much as she misses him. Now is him probably not feeling as empty as she does.

" _Maybe it's all about timing,_ " he'd added, before he'd kissed her thoroughly.

Maybe it isn't about timing, she thinks now because maybe there is not and never will be a right time for the _Evil Queen_ after all. And as she stares at page 23 (as she usually does after she's gone back to the town line and picked the pages up and taped them back together), she thinks that maybe, there is no somewhere, no someday, no time and no realm that the Queen and the thief could ever be together.

 **…**

 _"_ _I'm not much for dancing, but for you I did"_

Her appearance is something that Regina has taken pride of. She never really lets herself be seen not looking her best. After all, she was once the Queen, was once the mayor, and if there is something that Cora taught her that she hadn't been able to part with, it is that she cannot go about town not looking as presentable as she could.

She is thankful now that she is in a world where corsets are a thing of the past, where there is a modicum of comfort in dressing her best. Still, she finds that since she isn't all that keen to come out of her mansion at any given time at this point, not yet, not really. She is thankful that yoga pants and t-shirts are a thing in this world, and she wears them without inhibition. She locks herself in her room more often than not anyway.

She is at least grateful that she is not in the Enchanted Forest now as she had been last year, nursing a different kind of heartbreak, but a heartbreak all the same. At the very least, she doesn't have to make appearances and attend the stupid balls that Snow White and David insist on throwing to rally the people amidst the threats of her wicked witch of a sister and her Simian army.

" _Regina, you have to come this ball,"_ Regina remembers Snow White whining as she stalks off to her bedchambers, refusing to even set foot on the grand hall and participate to the festivities. " _You haven't attended any of it."_

" _Perhaps that should clue you in_ ," Regina mutters shaking her head at the absurdity of it all.

" _Give me one reason why you shouldn't be at this ball,"_ Snow White insists, and Regina gives in, tells her she cannot dance, she is not much for parties. Snow White ignores all of this and insists that she comes and attends the ball, and that she will drag her out of her chambers if need be.

Knowing that Snow White would, if given the chance, drag her, Regina gave up and gave in, attending the ball in a dress that Snow has deemed to be appropriate for it. All eyes had turned to her then, surprised that the Evil Queen is not in her usual garb but in a dress befitting Snow White herself. Regina had ignored them, planned to only make an appearance and then leave. But the thief had approached her then, cajoled her to giving him a dance, one she'd granted (up to this day she doesn't know why), to Snow's utter glee.

She'd smiled then as he's pulled her in his arms, after twirling her around, and she can't remember the last time she'd had that much fun in a ball, in the company of the thief no less (by then they have stuck a tentative friendship, having a shared feeling of grief over lost loved ones, bound by a tacit agreement to never talk of what happened in the underground tunnels and mausoleum again).

She wishes she can go back to that feeling…to being so carefree, to having her walls down and for once her mask off, and just be who she wants to be, regardless of the dress she's wearing or the moniker forever affixed to her name.

It had been the first time that Robin had called her Regina, the first time she'd ever let him. And it had definitely been a memory that they have revisited when they were in Storybrooke.

It had been the first time she'd let him see her, a glimpse of who she is, and it is the first time she'd felt so light, she'd felt like floating. He'd walked her to her bedchambers that night and had bid her goodnight.

She wants to get back to that magical night, wants to relive the moment she'd been in his arms, dancing even when she hadn't know how to, smiling for a while even without her son by her side.

But it's not possible anymore, not when she is here, and he is out there and they are separated by a magical barrier that doesn't lock them in but only keeps everyone out.

 **…**

 _"_ _Because I love your handshake meeting my_ _father_ _(son)"_

Henry, with his old mind and innocent soul, is a balm to her battered heart. He is the only one that actually puts a smile on her face these days. He has come to live with her again, with the exceptions of weekends which he spends with his blonde mother. But for all his efforts, for all his desire to help his hurting mother, he is still a child, still her little boy and so she is always careful not to let her pain show too much when he is around, opting to let the tears slip from her eyes when he isn't around.

This is not something she wants to burden her son with.

But Henry is no longer four and he can no longer be fooled, and when he sees her eyes rimmed with unshed tears, he starts asking questions, questions that she cannot dodge, because he _does_ understand more than she gives him credit for, or more than she wants him to in his young age anyway. Still, she tries, answers with the same response she'd given him when he'd asked if Robin Hood still loves her while they were looking for anything to help thaw Marian from the ice sculpture that she'd become.

"In this case, Henry, I'm afraid this may be something you're just too young to understand," she tells her son, or something of the same variety, to throw him off.

A look of displeasure passes his face quickly, then it's gone, and then he's back to coddling her, and it reminds her so much of the other Henry, the one she misses now so terribly as she experiences another heartbreak, very same from the one that's destroyed her so many decades ago, but very, very different from it too.

Sometimes, she finds herself dreaming that she has both Henry's by her side, maybe this would be so much bearable. Sometimes, she wishes that both her Henry's had been able to meet the man she loves so dearly now, the one who'd opened her heart to the possibility of being in love again. She wishes the older Henry had been there, to see her, to see her son. Maybe her life would have been more bearable, more pleasant.

He would have liked Robin, she thinks, if not simply because Robin has been able to do what no one had been able to do ever since Daniel: and that is to teach her to love once more, in a way that's different from the way she loves her son. Her father would have been in awe of Robin, and she imagines them shaking hands, bonding over things that men do. And she'd have a smile on her face as she watches them.

She thinks of the very first time she's revealed to her son that she's dating someone, something that he already knows having caught them making out only a few hours ago, after she'd broken the curse, she thinks of the time Henry had enthusiastically shaken Robin's hand, beyond excited that his mother is dating Robin Hood, of all people.

And then it's when she realizes that Robin might not have met the older Henry, but he had met the younger one, and it is almost the same, it's just as good, and it's when she wishes that the moment had lasted longer than it had, wishes they had more of that.

But just like the tattered pieces of page 23, she knows that the bridges that would get him back to her side where she wants him to be, are also broken.

 **…**

 _"_ _How you'd kiss me when I was in the middle of saying something,_ _there's not a day I don't miss those rude interruptions_ _"_

The house is empty and quiet, and she feels the loneliness seep through her bones as she wanders the halls of her mansion, the darkness and the coldness not bothering her anymore. It's another week and Regina finds herself alone, missing her thief and his dimpled son that she's come to love as her own, Henry is off to her blonde mother's house again (he's insisted that he can stay, would stay for her, but she told him no, knowing he would want to spend some time with Emma too).

She ghosts the halls, her mind full and her heart bare, wondering when the pain would recede and she'd stop hurting. The silence is pregnant with the sounds that used to fill it before, full of the noises she longs to hear but now fears she never will.

She hears the hushed conversations, the soft sighs and the whispered words as she passes the dark corridors. She hears Roland's sweet laugh and Robin's husky chuckle, the sound of two boys' laughter, and the thudding of feet. They are in every corner, as short as their moments had been, and she thinks of those times, holds them dearly in her heart.

She thinks of the words of encouragement and the simple gestures that make her believe in herself the way Robin believes in her, the way he so blindly puts his faith in her. She thinks of the gentle caresses that she's never imagined anyone would ever bestow upon her, not after everything, but he does, he always does. And she thinks of two pairs of dimpled cheeks that make her smile even in her darkest days. She is lucky she still has Henry, she thinks. She is very, very lucky.

She has her family in him.

But is it really gluttony to wish for a family that is more than just her and her little prince? Is it wrong to wish for a family with her thief along with a dimpled little hobbit that she'd come to love as her son?

Is it wrong to want the love she has been give a taste of?

Is it wrong to want back the soft kisses and the forehead touches, and the warm embraces?

Is it wrong to long for the support that she had been freely given without doubts or judgments?

" _The only people who believe in me in this town are Henry and you,"_ she'd told him (and god that seems like a long time ago now) before the curse of the shattered sight had created havoc in the town. He'd held her by the nape then, looking at her with love in his eyes that she had wanted to drown in them. She'd told him of everyone looking at her with hatred in their eyes, of the possibility of the townspeople coming after her and killing her.

He'd cut her off then, unwilling to let her think of things as such. " _Stop thinking_ ," he's instructed, cutting her off and cupping her cheeks. " _We're here now and this is true_."

He had looked at her in earnest and she'd nodded, before he'd captured her lips in a kiss, cradling her against his shoulder when they'd broken apart. She held on to him, for warmth, for support, for confidence and for the love that he so willingly gives her.

Well, he isn't here now, not anymore, and when she looks back at that memory, she knows…she knows that she misses his faith in her the most…faith that slowly wanes out as she begins to no longer believe that she could get him back to her.

 **…**

 _"_ _All I know is I don't know how to be anything you miss"_

Another week, another dead end, and more than a few moments where she wants to set fire to everything she sees. There seems to be nothing that could bring him back there, nothing that would lead her to the damned author, nothing to go on with so she could change her fate.

She finds herself sequestered in her vault more now than she had when she'd been looking for a cure to thaw Marian's ice form, finds that on the times she hadn't been beside her son, she opts to spend time down here surrounded by the numerous magical objects that is of no service to her quest of either getting Robin back or finding the author (they are not mutually exclusive, she realizes). She surprises even herself that she is able to spend time down here after every moment that this place had seen. Every corner, every nook and every cranny, reminds her of the time they've spent here together, and she is not cliché, not sickeningly sweet like her former stepdaughter, but even she would say that they'd made their own brand of magic in here.

" _My mind is in the forest, but my heart took me here,"_ he'd said even after she'd tried to explain that the only way they could save Marian was if he stayed away from her. She'd seen the pain in his eyes when she'd told him that he can't save his wife if he kept coming back to her, if he can't give Marian the kiss of true love, and it had been an equally painful moment to have him say that he can't fall back in love with the woman he'd have walked through hell for because of her, the bittersweet taste of the admission had lingered in the air and she'd tasted it, swallowed it back with a few choice words and walking out on him.

It hadn't been easy to walk away, she'd wanted to throw her arms around him and ask him to stay, to pick her, to love her, to be with her, to let the world think what they must because in each other's arms were where they belonged. But it had been a selfish, exactly what she hadn't wanted to be and so she'd dragged her feet towards to door of her mausoleum, her heart thundering in her chest as it slips right down to the ground of where he was left standing.

She thought she'd sent him away for good then.

But she hadn't, no, she hadn't, because it hadn't even been twenty-four hours later that he'd come back, his face still clearly in agony, but he'd found something in the time that they'd spent apart—determination perhaps, will, courage, or simply the need, the desire to reach out and grasp what had been so unjustly ripped from them both.

" _Be truthful, righteous and good, I've lived by that code every day of my life,_ " he'd told her when she had irritably, and in a very few words, why he'd come back.

She had been confused then, wondering why he'd just recited his code out for her when it didn't mean a thing now, when it should not mean a thing because he should _not_ even be there. " _Then why are you here_?" she'd asked.

" _Because today is not one of those days,"_ he'd answered her in earnest, a beat passing between them before he was cupping her cheeks and kissing her, kissing her like it'd be the last time he'd feel her lips against his, he'd kissed her like he was a man starved and she's the last meal on earth.

She'd let him haul her up then, let his arms pull her close and let his lips wreak havoc to hers. It had almost been desperate, that kiss, the intensity sucking her right through and making her soul soar. His tongue had slid in her mouth and she'd been lost, not even caring about anything else, letting herself be drowned in the scent and feel of him, wanting nothing but this moment to last, feeling as though she's grasping at the seams of the fabric of their torn happy ending. She hears a nagging voice at the back of her head telling her that this is wrong. But she feels him, feels him with her whole being and she'd given in, let him hold her and steal her breath away.

He'd kissed every inch of her skin as he peeled her red dress of her body that night, his breath sending goose bumps and shivers all over her body, and she'd been powerless to fight the feeling, the need, the desire to belong to him, even just once, even just that night, and she had—she'd belonged _with_ him.

He'd held her all night and she'd been barely able to crawl away from him come morning. She'd been dressed and ready to leave when he woke up, and even when it had felt wrong to have been so connected with him when there was a wife, his wife, under some curse, frozen and waiting to be thawed, she had not regretted any of it, had not regretted the choice she'd made and that had been to love him, love him fully, love him endlessly.

He'd kissed her deeply one last time before they'd parted ways that day (after another round of lovemaking), and when she'd driven her way to the _Charming_ loft, in a rush to get to her son, she'd still felt the ghost of his lips in hers, tasted the unique taste that is Robin.

She wonders now if he still thinks of that night wherever he might be right now. She wonders if he feels her kisses and her caresses across and against his skin the way she still feels his. She wonders if it makes him ache for her, for another moment spent together, for another minute where he is hers and she is his and nothing else matters because for once, for once they got a taste of what soul mate really feels like.

 **…**

 _"_ _So I'll watch your life in pictures the way I used to watch you sleep, and I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe and I keep up with our old friends just to ask them how you are…And I hope the sun shines and it's a beautiful day, Something reminds you, you wish you had stayed"_

Six weeks. Six long weeks and nothing, no call, no letter, not even a crow flying overhead delivering a message from the person she wants to hear from the most.

She feels numb, so numb as her heart breaks further at the thought of him moving on without her, and she doesn't think she is capable of that anymore, of heart break, wishes so much that she can just tear her heart out of her own chest, because that might help with the pain she feels clenching the blackened organ intensely.

Whoever said that the sound of a heart breaking is loud is wrong, because it isn't. It is quiet, too quiet, too silent, like a feather floating and falling to the ground, it makes no sound, and it's the hardest thing because her heart could shatter into so many tiny pieces but no one would ever know how much it truly hurts. No one but her.

So she does what she can, tries to survive, to live because she knows that she can do that if only for her son. She smiles at her son, at the family she's begrudgingly started to call hers, runs the town the way she always have, and at night, she stares at page 23, stares at the picture of him and her back when they were still together, happy, oblivious to the pain that would be coming their way.

She watches their life in pictures now the way she used to watch him, avidly, fondly. She drowns herself in the thoughts of the what ifs and the what could have beens, as the tears fill her eyes.

Those are what have become of her nights.

Then the morning would come, the sun rays filter through her windows, and she puts a smile on her face despite her broken soul, and she thinks no one really knows better.

But when Emma Swan asks if he's called to let her know how he is, or just called at all, Regina is barely able to suppress her tears, the pain she fills dripping from her voice as she says, _no_ , shaking her head slowly. Emma had looked like she was going to comfort her but the pirate and Belle had coming rushing in, telling them of a way to free the fairies and Regina's heartbreak plays second fiddle, shoved into the backburner, left forgotten until Regina could look at them again and comfort herself, because no one else does, no one else can, no one else could.

But he would, she thinks, if he had been there.

 _But he isn't_ , her practical mind insists, and she thinks that she wouldn't even have that heartbreak had he been there, then she'd think that he probably doesn't even miss her anymore as he lives a life with his family, far away from her. But her heart is treacherous, and it says differently, saying that maybe, he misses her as much as he does him, and maybe he isn't there now, maybe not ever again, but maybe he is thinking of her, tracing her face the way she does with his when staring at a picture of them.

Maybe deep inside, there is something that makes him wish he'd stayed the way she usually does.

Maybe he still holds on to what little hope they have left, the way he's held on to her as he crossed the town line and disappeared from her life.

 **…**

 _"_ _You can plan for the change on weather and time, but I never planned on you changing your mind"_

She cannot believe it.

Her sister has tricked her. Zelena together with Gold, have broken her heart, separated her from the man she loves, for revenge over something that she did not have a say, over the choices that her mother had made long before she was even born.

And now, that pain seem to eat her alive as she sits on a tool in a dingy bar in New York, nursing a cold glass of scotch and a broken heart. She thinks she knows of pain, has felt enough of it to last a life time, but it is nothing to the pain she's felt when she'd uttered his name back in that glorified closet of an apartment, and his face had been contorted in pain and shame, and she'd felt something burn inside her chest, worry, fear, and so many other things that had been blanched right through when Zelena had dropped her news. Regina felt as though she's had a bucket of cold water poured all over her head—it had jolted her, the pain running through her veins.

She's had very high hopes when she'd asked Emma to accompany her to get Robin out of her sister's clasp. Despite the many other challenges they'd faced on their way, she'd held on thinking only of the moment she'd see him again, the moment she'd be in his arms once more after so long.

" _I missed you_ ," Regina utters once she has him in her arms again, and she feels his heart thundering in his chest as it presses against his even through the layers of fabric that separates their hearts. She can feel his arms tighten around her.

" _And I you,"_ he breathes back, still unable to register her presence in his front door, and he sounded so earnest, so true that she feels her heart slowly mend itself.

Who knew that it would end to this?

She could still taste the bitterness of the words that had left her soul mate's lips, could not even swallow it back with the bitter alcohol she's been nursing.

"So," she begins when he sits beside her, upon finding her in the bar.

"Yeah," he fills in, not knowing what to say anymore.

"So you moved on," she tells him, her face devoid of expression even when her heart slowly breaks once more.

It's tense after that, as she watches his heart break for his son who is no one but a by stander in all of this, hurt by a vengeful sister who paid no mind to the hearts and lives she'd be destroying.

"If by happy ending you mean us _,"_ she hears him say, and it's a desperate move to be grasping at the straws when this is clearly a battlefield and they are both casualties, lost to the fickle hand of fate.

" _I choose you,"_ she remembers him tell her before and she remembers holding on to a hope she'd never even considered having before, and she thinks it's the cruelest joke, to have heard him say those very words to her, and be here in this situation now.

She hadn't really considered the possibility of him changing his mind and moving on from her, because she never really considered that possibility for herself.

So here they are now.

They now lie there in the middle of the scattered debris of a shattered happy ending, hearts broken, souls battered, and with more than just a magical barrier in the town line between them.

 **…**

 _"_ _I never thought we'd have our last kiss, never imagined we'd end like this, your name forever the name lips, just like our last kiss"_

All roads they lead her here.

The sun rises above head, signaling yet another day, yet she finds no solace in it, only wishes that it ends once more. The horrid green sign that welcomes them Storybrooke stands out in her sight as they near the town line, and she feels her heart beating in her chest so rapidly, she fears it would burst out completely. She can feel his eyes on her, and she knows all too well what he wants to say, but she doesn't let him, lest she snaps at him and tell him that whatever this is, is just a product of the choices he made.

She slows the car to a stop in front of Granny's where the Charming softball team stand waiting for them, Maleficent standing right beside them. Regina has climbed out of the car without a word, finding her son amidst all the people and enveloping him in the embrace that she desperately needs.

It's a blur after that, between instructing Robin to go find the potion meant for Roland and declining his invitation for her to join them, saying she needs to get her sister locked up, and finding the author and getting the ink, she's never really had a breather until she's poofing herself back to her vault. She doesn't really poof herself _in_ the vault, rather out of it because she needs the time to think things over.

It's still all unclear to her when she steps into her sister's new prison, the acidic words that her sister throws her way doing what it is meant to do, hitting the target right at the center, hurting her. But she doesn't let it show, acts coolly and instead lets the Evil Queen seep out from her, scaring her sister in the way she needs to be, because she can, because she holds the cards now, and she isn't going to let Zelena get away with hurting not only her but Robin and Roland, all because they loved, _love_ , her.

The fear in her sister's eyes is worth it, though it only manages to mend her heart by a fraction, but more so, the relief that flows through Regina when she says what she needs to say feels as though a heavy weight had been lifted from her chest.

It is then that Robin comes charging in the room, claiming that he's been looking for her, and she knows…she realizes that there is not a thing in this realm or in any other real that could dissuade her from loving him, from wanting him in her life—not even the baby that now resides in her sister's womb.

" _I'm so tired of standing in the way of my own happiness,"_ she tells her sister, her soul mate, and more so to herself as she holds on to the hands of the man that has helped her realize just this. " _And I'm not going to do it anymore."_

" _Ah, another woman defining her happiness relative to the love of a man. How sad, really,"_ Zelena taunts, another attempt to rouse her sister's ire, but Regina takes none of it.

" _Don't get it wrong greenie, Robin isn't my happy ending. My happy ending is finally feeling at home in the world,"_ she says, looking at her sister, trying to get this through to her, Regina is no damsel in distress in need of saving, she can save herself, and then she looks at the eyes of the man she loves, the man she is destined to be with, the man that pixie dust had fated to be hers, and continues, " _Robin is just a part of that world_ ," before she leans in towards him and catches his lips in a kiss.

Later, when all is said and done, with the feeling of death so fresh in her mind and the memories of dying before she'd even gotten a chance to taste the happy ending she had fought so hard to get, when she stands in the middle of her love's arms, holding on as though this is going to be their last hour on earth together, she thinks of the town line, of the last time she'd said goodbye to him in this world, of their separation, and the heartbreak that it had brought to her, she thinks of the promise he'd made in that alternate universe, and she realizes that maybe, no, not all the roads she'll take lead to goodbyes and broken promises and wasted dreams.

She realizes, as she kisses her lover and presses her form fully into his, fitting her body into his like a jigsaw puzzle piecing back together, she thinks that maybe, this time, her road would lead her to happiness, to the life they would have together, to the world that he is a part of, to her home.

Maybe, all her other roads will lead to this…to him, just like he'd said his own heart had led him.

"Robin," she whispers, tasting his name in her tongue, her lips, lets it warm her heart.

And she pulls him for one more kiss…the one of many, it seems.

 **Fin. (10/24/15)**

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 _a/n: I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know what you think and if you feel like we should collaborate more! Hope you all enjoyed it! Please tweet us ( RegalCountess, gelibass, or simplymaterial) and let us know if you liked it!_


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